Shaquille O'Neal 'accidentally' invested $250,000 in company and it's now worth an absolute fortune years later

NBA legend Shaquille O'Neal once 'accidentally' invested $250,000 (£196,000) in a company that is now one of the biggest in the world.

O'Neal is one of the richest sports stars in history and is estimated by Celebrity Net Worth to have a whopping net worth of $500 million (£393m).

While a percentage of that figure comes from his playing days in the NBA with the likes of the Los Angeles Lakers and Miami Heat, much of his wealth is derived from investments following the end of his professional career.

O'Neal has invested in everything from car washes, health clubs and nightclubs to Apple and Ring and, at one point in time, even owned 155 Five Guys franchises.

But one of his greatest business decisions came about because of a major stroke of luck.

TechCrunch report that technology giant Google was one of O'Neal's earliest investments.

But his decision to back to company, which now has an incredible market cap valuation of £1.8 trillion, was a complete 'accident' - according to Business Insider.

In the book, 'A-List Angels: How a Band of Actors, Artists, and Athletes Hacked Silicon Valley', author Zack O'Malley Greenburg details conversations he had with O'Neal about his investment strategy – including his decision to back Google in its early years.

According to Greenburg, Shaq was playing with some children at a restaurant and their dad happened to be a high-profile investor.

"He said, 'Shaq, I like you, I got something for you,'" O'Neal told Greenburg.

"It was presented to me, I knew it was gonna hit," O'Neal added.

"And I said, 'Wow, I'll try it.' My only regret is that I wish I would have bought more."

What's more, O'Neal only found out about the success of his investment after reading about it in a newspaper.

"The newspaper told me how much I made and I couldn't believe it," he said.

O'Neal is worth an estimated $500m (Image: Getty)

While Greenburg did not specify how much O'Neal invested, Fadeaway World claims the basketball great put in an initial $250,000.

Unfortunately, it's not known the exact year when O'Neal made the investment or whether he cashed it out.

But if you invested $1,000 (£784) in Google back in 2004 when the company first went public, your shares in Alphabet – now the search giant's parent company - would have been worth more than $66,000 (£51,800) on the 20-year anniversary initial public offering in August of this year, an incredible 6500 per cent increase.

Presuming Shaq did indeed invest $250,000 and has kept hold of all of his shares, they would have been worth roughly $16.5 million (£12.9m) on the date of the anniversary.

Of course, it is impossible to know if he cashed out early. But whatever his decision was, it's clear the NBA legend clearly knows what he's doing when it comes to business.